Without STC, rural labs struggle to send medical samples for testing in timely manner, union says

The Canadian Union of Public Employees says rural labs are “scrambling ” to find ways to send medical samples to cities for testing after the closure of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.

The president of CUPE’s Health Care Council, Sandra Seitz, said rural labs used STC to send medical samples to larger centres, and the Crown-owned bus company provided same-day delivery.

“The government shut down STC without a plan in place for the many government services that depend on timely, affordable provincewide transportation and without assessing the additional cost to health regions,” Seitz said in a statement.

Medical technologists and technicians represented by the union have reported problems trying to get the specimens to testing facilities in a timely manner. Some need to arrive within 24 hours and others need to arrive frozen.

In a statement released by the union, lab technician Holley Hermann said she’s had to call back patients to redo important tests because they didn’t reach the provincial lab in time. She said most days, they use a private courier.

“Some days we ask families or coworkers to deliver the material on their own. And sometimes we have to send samples in a taxi cab. This creates extra issues on our end as we scramble to get transportation in place and it costs more for taxpayers. And it is definitely not fair for patients,” Hermann said.

STC was also used to transport blood and blood products from Canadian Blood Services in Regina to rural hospitals around the province. Rural municipalities also used the bus service to send water samples for testing.